Wednesday, October 11, 2017

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman




What They Say....Find your magic.

For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man.

Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. Difficult Franny, with skin as pale as milk and blood red hair, shy and beautiful Jet, who can read other people’s thoughts, and charismatic Vincent, who began looking for trouble on the day he could walk.

From the start Susanna sets down rules for her children: No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And most importantly, never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Back in New York City each begins a risky journey as they try to escape the family curse.

The Owens children cannot escape love even if they try, just as they cannot escape the pains of the human heart. The two beautiful sisters will grow up to be the revered, and sometimes feared, aunts in Practical Magic, while Vincent, their beloved brother, will leave an unexpected legacy. Thrilling and exquisite, real and fantastical, The Rules of Magic is a story about the power of love reminding us that the only remedy for being human is to be true to yourself.



What I Say.....Can anyone resist an Alice Hoffman book?  I can't. Never ever.  I was so excited to get an advance copy of The Rules of Magic, the prequel to Practical Magic.  

The Owens children are being raised in New York by a mother who is trying her best to deny the magic that she was born into.  But she can't resist allowing them to visit their Aunt Isabelle, where they spend the summer discovering what they really are.  

The Owens children know that they are supposed to avoid love, but love doesn't seem be able to avoid them.  All three find love in different places, but their journeys all go in different directions.  Love saves one, shatters another and leads another on a journey of avoidance. 

Following the aunts from childhood to spinsterhood is heartwarming and heartbreaking.  To be blessed and cursed with magic seems to be a lonely life indeed.

I read The Rules of the Magic over the course of a day and a half, but I never wanted it to end.  



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